UK Prison

Rather than hold the torturers accountable, Bahrain is covering up its abuses. Rather than improve the situation, they have wilfully allowed its deterioration, which is worse now than during martial law in 2011.

My waiter, the chefs and all the guys at The Clink HMP Brixton appear to be smart, courteous, well trained and as suited to the job as any restaurant staff I've come across. But more than that, they have an air of hope about them.

Mental health is misunderstood in our society. Most people who are aware that mental health exists usually think it's synonymous with mental illness, and see mental illness as something awful and frightening...

Britain's prisons, unless we're lucky, could possibly give the government a pre-Christmas present they wouldn't like at all. Violence, self-harm and suicide are rising exponentially, and a system that's been creaking at the seams for years is like a boiler with a screwed-down safety valve. If it finally blows, the result could be catastrophic.

Artist John Costi was born London 1987, of dual Irish and Cypriot heritage. Working mostly in film, spoken word and performance installation his main concerns are identity and the self plus social and criminal justice.

We all took the view that public sympathy is with the women who are in effect sentenced to the equivalent of a death penalty whilst their children suffer the consequences. When they ask me - where were you Mummy when all these women were dying in prison, I will be proud to say I was at the HLE Debate and we didn't just talk about change we made it happen.

The Ministry of Justice has published details of how its new child super-prisons ("secure colleges") will be run. Sold as all about putting "education at the heart of custody", the plans are scant on detail about how children will be helped via education and health services, but contain 15 astonishing pages on discipline, punishment and control.

'I learned that all the gang bulls**t amounted to nothing because all of us fighting for land in the street just ended up in the same piece of land - prison. Nothing is permanent and all people will face their ending, especially in the life of crime.'

Last week the House of Lords considered the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill as it makes its way through parliament. There are a number of controversial aspects of this Bill - mandatory prison sentences for knife crimes have caught the public's attention. Plans to change the rules on judicial review have got Peers, lawyers and children's charities very worried.

There is still a lot of stigma surrounding mental health issues, and some people still do not believe it exists... but the truth is, it does. Whether you believe prisoners get things too easy, there's no denying that any illness needs to be treated whether that be physical or mental.

My fear is that the summer of sport will only be seen as the distraction that was hoped (I earnestly hope successfully) to prevent a summer of violence and disorder that comes when prisoners are just locked up and left to fail.

Imagine a country where, at the stroke of a pen and without any recourse to a judge, a faceless Government official can deprive someone of their liberty and, at the stroke of a pen, consign them indefinitely to what to all intents and purposes is a prison, without them having being charged with or convicted of any crime. That country is Britain. And if you thought that this use of state power was characteristic only of dictatorships or tyrannies, then think again, as it's happening here, on our doorstep, under our noses, without any fuss and certainly without any publicity.

For many of the women who take these chances for better work or education, prison, or sometimes detention centres, can be a terrifying ordeal. With a lack of family presence and a very likely language and culture barrier, getting the right advice or support can be almost impossible for foreign national women,